Dell PowerEdge SC420 2.8ghz, 512mb, 160GB SATA $348 w/free ship

[rasputinj]

PowerEdge Servers

Dell has a deal on the

PowerEdge SC420


Config with

P4 , 520, 2.8GHz,1MB Cache ,512mb DDR2, CD-Rom Drive Half Height, Black ,1 Year Basic Plan warranty,160GB SATA




for for $348 with free ship

 

[wiredspider]

Nice deal, $99 cheaper if you can stand to downgrade to a celery

 

[bryantp]

Total Price $368.89 including TAX to SC

 

[skisteven1]

this is a way better deal IMHO than the one I jumped on a few months ago. I got the 2.4celery, 256ECC ram (way more expensive to buy more of), and the same 160SATA drive for $250. If I had known, I would have held out for this one :-/

 

[ImSeeker]

I see 398 after rebate.

 

[Sparke]

Deal appears to be dead now.

 

[3point14]

Originally posted by: Sparke
Deal appears to be dead now.

Same here, but I just configured this for $498 (before tax)

Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, 3.4GHz,1MB Cache,800MHz FSB, EM64T
512MB DDR2, 400MHz, 2X256 Single Ranked
160GB SATA

 

[middlehead]

Anybody tried turning one of these things into a PVR? I'd imagine you could just toss in XP and a tuner card, maybe a soundcard for fun. And with a tuner that has a hardware based encoder like the Hauppauge PVR150, that 2.8 P4 oughta be able to re-encode and shrink those files just fine.

 

[dbleoslow]

Originally posted by: middlehead
Anybody tried turning one of these things into a PVR? I'd imagine you could just toss in XP and a tuner card, maybe a soundcard for fun. And with a tuner that has a hardware based encoder like the Hauppauge PVR150, that 2.8 P4 oughta be able to re-encode and shrink those files just fine.

I set one up with SageTV and a PVR-150 and PVR-350. I used the TV out on the 350 so the encoding and decoding was done by the card. Mine only has a Celly 2.53. I also run a web server on it. I did toss in a sound card. If you don't want to use the video out from the 350, you'd have to get a vid card to output to a monitor/TV.

 

[imported_h0ax]

just checked it - seems it still coming up as $398
maybe just temporarily dead?

 

[middlehead]

Originally posted by: dbleoslow

Originally posted by: middlehead
Anybody tried turning one of these things into a PVR? I'd imagine you could just toss in XP and a tuner card, maybe a soundcard for fun. And with a tuner that has a hardware based encoder like the Hauppauge PVR150, that 2.8 P4 oughta be able to re-encode and shrink those files just fine.

I set one up with SageTV and a PVR-150 and PVR-350. I used the TV out on the 350 so the encoding and decoding was done by the card. Mine only has a Celly 2.53. I also run a web server on it. I did toss in a sound card. If you don't want to use the video out from the 350, you'd have to get a vid card to output to a monitor/TV.

I was thinking about sticking with the 2.53 as well, since I mostly use divx and I've read a few articles that said celery d's did just as well in divx encoding as similarly rated P4s. I just need to find a video card that confirms it can push an S-Video signal through an A/V switcher, since my TV doesn't have s-video ports.

 

[Tab]

Anyone figure out how many 3.5" drive bays this thing has?

 

[middlehead]

Originally posted by: Tab
Anyone figure out how many 3.5" drive bays this thing has?

More information than you'll probably need

I wonder if the Hauppauge PVR150 will work in Server2003. If it does, I could use the academic S2003 I've got

 

[Moltres]

Originally posted by: middlehead
Anybody tried turning one of these things into a PVR?

I put a PVR-250 and 2 PVR-150's in one with BeyondTV. I had so many problems that were very hard to pinpoint. We tried everything from reinstalling different OS's to using a house fan to blow in the open case. It stayed very buggy...artifacts, no color, no sound, cutoff shows, random resets, lockups, etc. I also had problems with it playing some games like Warcraft3. I replaced the memory with the official OCZ 1GB memory kit for SC420, a bigger hard drive, and a new video card. It just stayed flaky with the PVR and games.

I built a new computer for the PVR and now use this as a client box running BeyondTV Link and DVD movies. It does very well at that. It also ran distributed computing stuff for months with no problems.

 

[thaumaturgan]

Originally posted by: Tab
Anyone figure out how many 3.5" drive bays this thing has?

It has 2 5x25" (1 has the CD), 3x3.5" (1 for floppy).

Rails for unused slots are included and mounted inside the chassis. SATA cables for unused ports however are NOT included.

I picked up two, 1 with 2x80GB, 2.8 p4, and 1 with 1x80gb seems the double hard drive deal was only good for 1 customer or some such as it wouldn't appear on the second system I tried to order.

Note that the RAID is some sort of quasi sw based raid that the driver handles in combinatino with the hardware on the mobo. I tried Suse and Debian and neither wanted to play. I did read that RedHat ES has some driver support for this thing.

Moved the memory from 1 system into the other for dual channel 512MB, and ordered 2x512MB ddr2 for 1GB in the other (~125.00 last week @ the egg).

 

[Morpheux]

Just ordered the Cele 2.53, 512, 160GB for $263 shipped this morning. Not a bad deal at all.